The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
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List of the most influential people in Physics,
#11551
Otto Scherzer
1909 - 1982 (73 years)
Otto Scherzer was a German theoretical physicist who made contributions to electron microscopy. Education Scherzer studied physics at the Munich Technical University and the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich from 1927 to 1931. At LMU his thesis advisor was Arnold Sommerfeld, and he was granted his doctorate in 1931. His thesis was on the quantum theory of Bremsstrahlung. From 1932 to 1933, Scherzer was an assistant to Carl Ramsauer at the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft, an electric combine with headquarters in Berlin and Frankfurt-on-Main. There, he did research on electron optics.
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Otto Lehmann
1855 - 1922 (67 years)
Otto Lehmann was a German physicist and "father" of liquid crystal. Life Otto was the son of Franz Xavier Lehmann, a mathematics teacher in the Baden-Wurtemberg school system, with a strong interest in microscopes. Otto learned to experiment and keep records of this findings. Between 1872 and 1877, Lehmann studied natural sciences at the University of Strassburg and obtained the Ph.D. under crystallographer Paul Groth. Otto used polarizers in a microscope so that he might watch for birefringence appearing in the process of crystallization.
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Frederick Guthrie
1833 - 1886 (53 years)
Frederick Guthrie FRS FRSE was a British physicist, chemist, and academic author. He was the son of Alexander Guthrie, a London tradesman, and the younger brother of mathematician Francis Guthrie. Along with William Fletcher Barrett he founded the Physical Society of London in 1874 and was president of the society from 1884 until 1886. He believed that science should be based on experimentation rather than discussion.
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Johan Peter Holtsmark
1894 - 1975 (81 years)
Johan Peter Holtsmark was a Norwegian physicist, who studied spectral line broadening and electron scattering. In 1929, while at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, Holtsmark established acoustics research laboratories, focusing on architectural acoustics and sound insulation. Holtsmark was also a consultant for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation throughout the 1930s.
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Vitold Tserasky
1849 - 1925 (76 years)
Vitold Karlovich Tserasky also spelled Witold Cerasky was a Russian astronomer and inventor of astronomical tools and techniques. The asteroid 807 Ceraskia and the Lunar crater Tseraskiy are named after him.
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Jules Violle
1841 - 1923 (82 years)
Jules Louis Gabriel Violle was a French physicist and inventor. He is notable for having determined the solar constant at Mont Blanc in 1875, and, in 1881, for proposing a standard for luminous intensity, called the Violle, equal to the light emitted by 1 cm² of platinum at its melting point. It was notable as the first unit of light intensity that did not depend on the properties of a particular lamp. This was much larger than traditional measures such as candlepower, so the standard SI unit candela was originally defined in 1946 as 1/60 Violle.
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Max Bernhard Weinstein
1852 - 1918 (66 years)
Max Bernhard Weinstein was a German physicist and philosopher. He is best known as an opponent of Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and for having written a broad examination of various theological theories, including extensive discussion of pandeism.
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William Edward Ayrton
1847 - 1908 (61 years)
William Edward Ayrton, FRS was an English physicist and electrical engineer. Life Early life and education Ayrton was born in London, the son of Edward Nugent Ayrton, a barrister, and educated at University College School and University College, London. He later studied under Lord Kelvin at Glasgow.
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Georg Hermann Quincke
1834 - 1924 (90 years)
Georg Hermann Quincke FRSFor HFRSE was a German physicist. Biography Born in Frankfurt-on-Oder, Quincke was the son of prominent physician Geheimer Medicinal-Rath Hermann Quincke and the elder brother of physician Heinrich Quincke.
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Ellen Hayes
1851 - 1930 (79 years)
Ellen Amanda Hayes was an American mathematician and astronomer. She was a controversial figure, not only because of being a female college professor, but also for embracing many radical causes. Early life Hayes was born in Granville, Ohio, the first of six children to Ruth Rebecca Hayes and Charles Coleman Hayes. At the age of seven she studied at the Centerville school, a one-room ungraded public school and, in 1867, at sixteen, was employed to teach at a country school. In 1872, she entered the preparatory department at Oberlin College and was admitted as a freshman in 1875, where her mai...
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Étienne-Louis Malus
1775 - 1812 (37 years)
Étienne-Louis Malus was a French officer, engineer, physicist, and mathematician. Malus was born in Paris, France. He participated in Napoleon's expedition into Egypt and was a member of the mathematics section of the Institut d'Égypte. Malus became a member of the Académie des Sciences in 1810. In 1810 the Royal Society of London awarded him the Rumford Medal.
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Anders Donner
1854 - 1938 (84 years)
Anders Donner was a professor of astronomy at the University of Helsinki observatory between 1883 and 1915. Before that, he served as a docent of astronomy between 1881–83. He was the rector of the university between 1911 and 1915 and acting chancellor 1917–1919 and 1921–1926.
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Aristyllus
400 BC - 300 BC (100 years)
Aristyllus was a Greek astronomer, presumably of the school of Timocharis . He was among the earliest meridian-astronomy observers. Six of his stellar declinations are preserved at Almajest 7.3. All are exactly correct within his over-cautious rounding to 1/4 degree. See discussion at DIO 7.1 ‡1 p. 13 .
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Herbert E. Ives
1882 - 1953 (71 years)
Herbert Eugene Ives was a scientist and engineer who headed the development of facsimile and television systems at AT&T in the first half of the twentieth century. He is best known for the 1938 Ives–Stilwell experiment, which provided direct confirmation of special relativity's time dilation, although Ives himself did not accept special relativity, and argued instead for an alternative interpretation of the experimental results. Ives has been described as "the most authoritative opponent of relativity in United States between the late 1930s and the early 1950s."
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Antonio Abetti
1846 - 1928 (82 years)
Antonio Abetti was an Italian astronomer. Born in San Pietro di Gorizia , he earned a degree in mathematics and engineering at the University of Padua. He was married to Giovanna Colbachini in 1879 and they had two sons. He died in Arcetri.
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Charlotte Riefenstahl
1899 - 1993 (94 years)
Charlotte Houtermans was a German physicist. Education Riefenstahl began her studies at the Georg-August University of Göttingen in 1922, where her teachers included, among others, Max Born, Richard Courant, James Franck, David Hilbert, Emmy Noether, Robert Pohl, and Carl Runge. She received her doctorate under Gustav Heinrich Johann Apollon Tammann in 1927, the same year as Robert Oppenheimer, under Born, and Fritz Houtermans, under Franck. She was courted by both Oppenheimer and Houtermans.
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Carl Hellmuth Hertz
1920 - 1990 (70 years)
Carl Hellmuth Hertz was a German physicist known primarily for being involved in the development of inkjet technology and ultrasound technology. He was the son of Gustav Ludwig Hertz and great nephew of Heinrich Hertz.
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Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov
1875 - 1960 (85 years)
Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov was a Soviet astronomer who was a pioneer in astrobiology and is considered to be the father of astrobotany. He worked as an observer at the Pulkovo Observatory from 1906 until 1941. After undertaking an expedition to Alma-Ata to observe the solar eclipse of September 21, 1941, he remained and became one of the founders of the Kamenskoe Plateau Observatory, the Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute, and the Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences.
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Frederik Kaiser
1808 - 1872 (64 years)
Frederik Kaiser was a Dutch astronomer. He was director of the Leiden Observatory from 1838 until his death. He is credited with the advancement of Dutch astronomy through his scientific contributions of positional measurements, his popularization of astronomy in the Netherlands, and by helping to build a state-of-the-art observatory in 1861. Today it is known as the "Old Observatory"
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Balthasar van der Pol
1889 - 1959 (70 years)
Balthasar van der Pol was a Dutch physicist. Life and work Van der Pol began his studies of physics in Utrecht in 1911. J. A. Fleming offered van der Pol the use of the Pender Electrical Laboratory at University College for a study of the heuristics of wireless reception on board ships. In England he also worked with J. J. Thomson. Upon his return to the Netherlands, Balthsar worked with Hendrik Lorentz at Teylers Stichting. For his thesis he wrote The effect of an ionised gas on electro-magnetic wave propagation and its application to radio, as demonstrated by glow-discharge measurement under the supervision of Willem Henri Julius.
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J. Curry Street
1906 - 1989 (83 years)
Jabez Curry Street was an American physicist, a co-discoverer of atomic particles called muons. Street was also notable for heading the group at MIT that created ground and ship radar systems. He also directed development of LORAN Navigation System, which is used worldwide for navigation purposes. Street was chairman of the physics department at Harvard University and acting director of the Cambridge Electron Accelerator, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academies Press called him "a boldly innovative experimental physicist whose discoveries in cosmic rays influe...
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Anania Shirakatsi
610 - Present (1416 years)
Anania Shirakatsi was a 7th-century Armenian polymath and natural philosopher, author of extant works covering mathematics, astronomy, geography, chronology, and other fields. Little is known for certain of his life outside of his own writings, but he is considered the father of the exact and natural sciences in Armenia—the first Armenian mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer.
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Carl Charlier
1862 - 1934 (72 years)
Carl Vilhelm Ludwig Charlier was a Swedish astronomer. His parents were Emmerich Emanuel and Aurora Kristina Charlier. Career Charlier was born in Östersund. He received his Ph.D. from Uppsala University in 1887, later worked there and at the Stockholm Observatory and was Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Observatory at Lund University from 1897.
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Ibrahim ibn Sinan
908 - 946 (38 years)
Ibrahim ibn Sinan was a mathematician and astronomer who belonged to a family of scholars originally from Harran in northern Mesopotamia. He was the son of Sinan ibn Thabit and the grandson of Thābit ibn Qurra . Like his grandfather, he belonged to a religious sect of star worshippers known as the Sabians of Harran.
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William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse
1800 - 1867 (67 years)
William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse , was an Anglo-Irish astronomer, naturalist, and engineer. He was president of the Royal Society , the most important association of naturalists in the world in the nineteenth century. He built several giant telescopes. His 72-inch telescope, built in 1845 and colloquially known as the "Leviathan of Parsonstown", was the world's largest telescope, in terms of aperture size, until the early 20th century. From April 1807 until February 1841, he was styled as Baron Oxmantown.
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Georg Wulff
1863 - 1925 (62 years)
Georg Wulff, Georgy Wulff or Yuri Viktorovich Vulf was a pioneer Russian crystallographer. Biography Wulff was born in Nizhyn, Chernigov province where his mother Lydia was daughter of teacher E. V. Gudim. His father Viktor Konstantinovich Vulf was a literature teacher at the 6th Warsaw Gymnasium. He grew up in Warsaw and graduated from the 6th Warsaw Gymnasium in 1880. He then went to the Imperial Warsaw University to study natural sciences. He studied under crystallographer A. E. Lagorio, and physicists N. G. Egorov and P. A. Zilov. In the third year, he studied the electrical properties of quartz for which he received a gold medal.
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Pietro Tacchini
1838 - 1905 (67 years)
Pietro Tacchini was an Italian astronomer. He was born and raised in Modena, Italy. He studied engineering at the University of Padova. At the age of 21, he was appointed the director of a small observatory in Modena. By 1863 he became the Primo Astronomo Aggiunto, or director of the observatory, at Palermo, Italy. He remained there until 1879, and focused most of his attention on observations of the Sun.
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Joseph Stepling
1716 - 1778 (62 years)
Joseph Stepling was a Bohemian Jesuit priest, astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. Stepling founded the Clementinum Observatory in Prague in 1751 fitted with the best instruments available in that period, some made by Jan Klein. The earliest instrumental meteorological observations in central Europe were made at this observatory. The minor planet 6540 Stepling is named in his honour. Stepling was born in Regensburg and after the death of his father who came from Westphalia and worked at the Imperial Embassy at Ratisbon, his mother moved to her home in Prague. He attended the local Jesuit school and joined the order in 1733.
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Thomas Corwin Mendenhall
1841 - 1924 (83 years)
Thomas Corwin Mendenhall was an American autodidact physicist and meteorologist. He was the first professor hired at Ohio State University in 1873 and the superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1889 to 1894. Alongside his work, he was also an advocate for the adoption of the metric system by the United States and is the father of author profiling.
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Walter Gordon
1893 - 1939 (46 years)
Walter Gordon was a German theoretical physicist. Life Walter Gordon was the son of businessman Arnold Gordon and his wife Bianca Gordon . The family moved to Switzerland in his early years. In 1900, he attended school in St. Gallen and in 1915 he began his studies of mathematics and physics at University of Berlin. He received his doctoral degree in 1921 from Max Planck. In 1922, while still at the University of Berlin, Gordon became the assistant of Max von Laue. In 1925, he worked for some months in Manchester with William Lawrence Bragg and later, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for fiber chemistry in Berlin.
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Ecphantus the Pythagorean
Ecphantus or Ecphantos or Ephantus was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher. He is identified as a Pythagorean of the 4th century BCE from Syracuse, Magna Graecia, but the details concerning his life are historically obscure; he may have not been a historical person, but rather a fictional character invented by Heraclides of Pontus for use in his philosophical dialogues. He also may have been the same figure as the attested Ecphantus of Croton.
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Elmer Imes
1883 - 1941 (58 years)
Elmer Samuel Imes was an internationally renowned American physicist who made important contributions in quantum, demonstrating for the first time that Quantum Theory could be applied to the rotational energy states of molecules, as well as the vibration and electronic levels, Imes' work provided an early verification of Quantum Theory, and his spectroscopy instrumentation inventions, which include one of the earliest applications of high resolution infrared spectroscopy led to development of the field of study of molecular structure through infrared spectroscopy; he was also the second African American to earn a Ph.D.
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Johann Heinrich Jakob Müller
1809 - 1875 (66 years)
Johann Heinrich Jakob Müller was a German physicist. Biography From 1829 he studied mathematics and physics at the University of Bonn, where one of his instructors was Julius Plücker, then continued his education at the University of Giessen as a student of Justus von Liebig. In 1834 he became a teacher at the Darmstadt gymnasium, and in 1837 returned to Giessen as an instructor at the Realschule. In 1844 he was appointed professor of physics and technology at the University of Freiburg, a position he maintained up until his death in 1875.
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Erik Prosperin
1739 - 1803 (64 years)
Erik Prosperin was a Swedish astronomer. Prosperin was a lecturer in mathematics and physics at Uppsala University in 1767, professor of observational astronomy in 1773 – 1796, and professor of Astronomy in 1797 – 1798. He became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm in 1771, a member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala in 1774 , and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1803.
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Władysław Dziewulski
1878 - 1962 (84 years)
Władysław Dziewulski was a Polish astronomer and mathematician. He spent most his life performing astronomical research, and published over 200 papers. Life He studied mathematics and astronomy in his native Warsaw. Then in 1902 he went to the University of Göttingen in Germany to complete his education. In 1903, he was named as an assistant at the astronomical observatory in Kraków that belonged to the Jagiellonian University and in 1906, he gained his PhD there. In 1919, he became a professor of the Batory University in Vilna and director of its Astronomical Observatory. He was also the rector of Batory University in 1924–25.
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Joel Stebbins
1878 - 1966 (88 years)
Joel Stebbins was an American astronomer who pioneered photoelectric photometry in astronomy. He was director of the University of Illinois Observatory from 1903 to 1922 where he performed innovative work with the selenium cell. In 1922 he became director of the Washburn Observatory at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he remained until 1948. After 1948, Stebbins continued his research at Lick Observatory until his final retirement in 1958.
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Alfred Schild
1921 - 1977 (56 years)
Alfred Schild was a leading Austrian American physicist, well known for his contributions to the Golden age of general relativity . Biography Schild was born in Istanbul on September 7, 1921. His parents were German-speaking Viennese Jews, but his early education was in England. Upon the outbreak of World War II Schild was interned as an enemy alien, but later allowed to travel to Canada. In 1944 he earned his B.A. at the University of Toronto, and in 1946 completed his doctorate under the direction of Leopold Infeld. Schild spent the next eleven years at the Carnegie Institute of Technology,...
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Eugene Bloch
1878 - 1944 (66 years)
Eugène Bloch was a French physicist and professor at the École Normale Supérieure, and at the Faculty of Science of the University of Paris. Early life and education Eugène Bloch was born on 10 June 1878 in Soultz-Haut-Rhin, Alsace-Lorraine, in the German Empire. His father, an industrialist in the textile industry, sold his Alsatian factory and settled in Paris to give his two sons Leon and Eugène a French education. Eugene studied from 1897 to 1900 at the École Normale Supérieure, where he studied the physics of Jules Violle, Marcel Brillouin, and Henri Abraham, and at the Faculty of Scienc...
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Ernest O. Wollan
1902 - 1984 (82 years)
Ernest Omar Wollan was an American physicist who made major contributions in the fields of neutron scattering and health physics. Biography Wollan was a native of Glenwood, Minnesota. After earning a bachelor's degree at Concordia College in 1923, he undertook graduate study at the University of Chicago, where he investigated X-ray scattering under Arthur Compton and received a Ph.D. in 1929. Over the next several years, he taught physics at North Dakota State College and Washington University in St. Louis, spent a year in Zurich as a National Research Council fellow conducting research on co...
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Andrew Gordon
1712 - 1751 (39 years)
Andrew Gordon was a Scottish Benedictine monk, physicist and inventor. He made the first electric motor. Life Andrew Gordon was born in Cofforach, Forfarshire. He was a son of an old Scottish aristocratic family and baptized with the name George. At the age of 12, he travelled to Regensburg, Bavaria, in order to study at the Benedictine Scottish Monastery. As a Catholic Scot, there was no possibility of getting entrance to higher offices in his homeland. In Regensburg, he completed a 5-year general education course of study. Abbott Bernhard Baillie made it possible for Gordon to make education journeys to Austria, France and Italy, in particular to Rome.
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Gabrio Piola
1791 - 1850 (59 years)
Gabrio Piola was an Italian mathematician and physicist, member of the Lombardo Institute of Science, Letters and Arts. He studied in particular the mechanics of the continuous, linking his name to the tensors called Piola–Kirchhoff.
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Georgios Konstantinos Vouris
1802 - 1860 (58 years)
Georgios Konstantinos Vouris He was born in Vienna to Greek parents. He studied astronomy and mathematics with some of the most important scientists of the time namely Andreas von Ettingshausen and Joseph Johann von Littrow. He did significant research in the fields of astrophysics, astronomy, geodesy, meteorology, number theory, calculus, and probability theory. He moved to Greece and stayed in the country for sixteen years before moving back to Vienna where he lived out the rest of his life. He played a significant role in the founding of the physics and mathematics department at the University of Athens.
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Miguel A. Catalán
1894 - 1957 (63 years)
Miguel Antonio Catalán y Sañudo was a Spanish spectroscopist. Biography Miguel Antonio Catalán y Sañudo was born in Zaragoza, he obtained his degree in chemistry from the University of Zaragoza and received his doctorate in Madrid in 1917 for his thesis about spectrochemistry. In 1920, he began work as a researcher at Imperial College London. Examining the spectrum of the arc of manganese, he determined that the optical spectra of complex atoms consisted of groups of lines –which he called "multipletes"- between which existed certain characteristic regularities. Catalán demonstrated that stud...
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Jules Jamin
1818 - 1886 (68 years)
Jules Célestin Jamin was a French physicist. He was professor of physics at École Polytechnique from 1852 to 1881 and received the Rumford Medal in 1858 for his work on light. He improved Brewster's inclined interference plates with the development of the Jamin interferometer.
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John Martin Schaeberle
1853 - 1924 (71 years)
John Martin Schaeberle was a Kingdom of Württemberg-born American astronomer. Biography He was born Johann Martin Schäberle in Kingdom of Württemberg, but in 1854 immigrated as an infant to the United States. Most sources refer to him as John M. Schaeberle, but his family and friends called him Martin.
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Aloysius Lilius
1510 - 1576 (66 years)
Aloysius Lilius , also variously referred to as Luigi Lilio or Luigi Giglio, was an Italian doctor, astronomer, philosopher and chronologist, and also the "primary author" who provided the proposal that became the basis of the Gregorian Calendar reform of 1582.
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Johann Gottlieb Nörremberg
1787 - 1862 (75 years)
Johann Gottlieb Christian Nörremberg was a German physicist who worked on the polarization of light. From 1823 he taught classes in mathematics and physics at the military school in Darmstadt. In 1833 he became a professor of mathematics, physics and astronomy at the University of Tübingen, where he worked on surveying and the development of optical instruments. Among his better known creations was a polarization apparatus, a device used in the making of a "Nörremberg polariscope". Most of his scientific articles were published in Poggendorfs Annalen.
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Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat
1912 - 1980 (68 years)
Marie-Antoinette Tonnelat was a French theoretical physicist. Her physics research focused on relativistic quantum mechanics under the influence of gravity. Along with the help of Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger, she attempted to propose one of the first unified field theories. She is also known for her work on the history of special and general relativity.
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Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr
1677 - 1750 (73 years)
Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr was a German mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer. Professional life and publications He was born in Nuremberg, the son of the merchant Johann Siegmund Doppelmayr. He entered the Aegidien-Gymnasium in Nuremberg in 1689, then the University of Altdorf in 1696. His studies included mathematics, physics, and jurisprudence. Later he continued his studies in Halle and graduated in 1698 with a dissertation on the Sun.
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Adolf Bestelmeyer
1875 - 1957 (82 years)
Adolf Bestelmeyer was a German experimental physicist. Life and work Bestelmeyer studied mathematics and physics at the Technical University of Berlin, the Technical University of Munich and the University of Munich. After his promotion, he worked in 1904 as an assistant at the University of Göttingen. In World War I he was active in torpedo research, and afterwards he was professor of physics at the University of Greifswald from 1917 to 1921. He then served until the end of World War II as a laboratory manager in various companies , especially in the area of torpedo construction.
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